About what I expected... reaffirmed what they said in the Manifesto, but at least they're acknowledging all the ******** and tossing the pro-melee crowd a bone. New enspells are exciting, as well as the possibility of enspell merits. Fencer gear will be nice to stack with /WAR's base trait.. as long as they don't put it on otherwise useless gear.

The only complaint I have is this:

Quote:

Get rid of the 100% enfeeble resists on some monsters.

Quote:

In regards to monsters that are completely resistant to certain spells, there is a high possibility that we won’t make any significant changes. However, there aren’t really too many of these monsters, so in regards to adjustments making it possible to land enfeebling magic easier, we feel it would be better for red mage’s to experience this effect on a larger amount of monsters.

Not exactly encouraging.

Edited, Aug 8th 2011 8:11pm by LyltiaofLakshmi

____________________________

rdmcandie wrote:

RDM can attain an almost static 50% reduction to recast time, SCH can over shoot this for a total of 60% reduction under Alacrity (provided you are wearing loafers and keeping dark weather on yourself)

rdmcandie wrote:

MACC is a joke, any job with access to mage gear can hit close the MACC cap on legion mobs, which is why my BRD/RDM can land slow/para/blind despite having only 150 skill (from /RDM.)

I've never really understood the point of making things broadly immune.. just give them rapidly increasing resistance so that you only get a couple of casts in before it becomes immune, and make it so you need good gear to land it in the first place. Would easily prevent cheesing through things with Bind/Grav (which seems to be the entire point of immunity), while making battles much more tactically interesting to a well-geared RDM.

If a RNG can Shadowbind virtually any mob in the game, and use it intelligently to counter something like Hundred Fists, why shouldn't RDM be able to as well?

It seems they're going in the entirely opposite direction; leave immunities intact, make m.acc gear even more useless. Do not like.

____________________________

rdmcandie wrote:

RDM can attain an almost static 50% reduction to recast time, SCH can over shoot this for a total of 60% reduction under Alacrity (provided you are wearing loafers and keeping dark weather on yourself)

rdmcandie wrote:

MACC is a joke, any job with access to mage gear can hit close the MACC cap on legion mobs, which is why my BRD/RDM can land slow/para/blind despite having only 150 skill (from /RDM.)

Its still pointless though in times we care about damage we will be /NIN dual wielding not caring about fencer, or we will be /WAR and get it "natively", or we could be /BLU which the gear will take a back seat to -pdt/mdt gear, or a Sang Blade set, meaning it will see little to no use. Unless it gets slapped on -DT gear. (or it is enhnces effect type and stacks with WARs bonus. although I highly doubt SE it that clever.)

Sorry, I'm still just blown away at RDM not getting an innate Fencer trait to really focus on anything else that was said. And I'm not even a particular fan of RDM melee, either.

Subtle way of saying "we're not giving you the inherent class support you need to step to the front lines. Have fun cycling refresh II and haste".

Admittedly, RCD also has a point. Single-wield isn't a smart choice when focusing on hitting things. They'd have to overhaul single and dual wield AND adjust/change/nerf TP gains and mechanics before it would be sensical to give RDM fencer. In a way, it's more a class identity thing. RDM is a magic fencer, but everyone else got the fencer trait. We wouldn't be so up the wall over it if it had been called ittou-ryu (single wield) or something. Even taking liberties with the name (Focused Grip, maybe?) would have helped in avoiding that mess.

(...)but that doesn’t mean that we will not be looking into the sword-wielding proficiency of red mages. We are actually planning adjustments to red mage’s proficiencies in the upcoming version update.

Everyone is so bent out of shape about not getting Fencer that we're choosing to ignore this part? Has anyone considered that maybe Fencer as implemented is not something that fits RDM? Because when I look at RDM's melee capabilities, I certainly don't think to myself "Y'know, 5% more criticals and 20 TP Bonus would solve all my problems!" Who cares what the ability is called? The only thing that matters is what it does, and Fencer (while quite nice while /WAR single-wielding Almace with Enspell II...) is not going to fix anything that's wrong with RDM melee.

I for one am glad they have ignored the general outcry over Fencer (which is 95% focused on the name, rather than what it does... and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for WAR to have the highest tiers, what with the entire point of their job being weapon specialization... BST, uh, I've got nothing) and have made it clear they intend to buff our melee in some other, more job-appropriate fashion; giving us Fencer and calling it a day would've probably been the worst thing that could've happened.

And to those who think SE doesn't know what they're doing when it comes to RDM melee, I see your skepticism and raise you Composure... fulltime stance that increases melee accuracy (allowing us to wear more gear with better stats like Haste) and doubles self-cast Enhancing magic, and further enhanced it to (almost) triple self-cast buffs and double party-cast buffs, drastically reducing what is by far the largest detriment to RDM melee: casting spells. It's an ingenious ability really; the community doesn't give the devs nearly enough credit for it, made evident by all the ******** that the Estoqueur set does nothing for meleeing when, in actuality, it gives an enormous boost to one of the best tools we have for it.

I sincerely hope that all the people pining for **** like Fencer (fun, but not going to fix anything) or gear on par with heavy DDs (never going to happen) are once again disappointed, and the devs give us something that'll actually address the underlying problems with RDM melee.

Edited, Aug 11th 2011 4:53am by LyltiaofLakshmi

____________________________

rdmcandie wrote:

RDM can attain an almost static 50% reduction to recast time, SCH can over shoot this for a total of 60% reduction under Alacrity (provided you are wearing loafers and keeping dark weather on yourself)

rdmcandie wrote:

MACC is a joke, any job with access to mage gear can hit close the MACC cap on legion mobs, which is why my BRD/RDM can land slow/para/blind despite having only 150 skill (from /RDM.)

I for one am glad they have ignored the general outcry over Fencer (which is 95% focused on the name, rather than what it does... and if you think about it, it makes perfect sense for WAR to have the highest tiers, what with the entire point of their job being weapon specialization... BST, uh, I've got nothing) and have made it clear they intend to buff our melee in some other, more job-appropriate fashion; giving us Fencer and calling it a day would've probably been the worst thing that could've happened.

Indeed. I've never cared for it, and overall see the trait as a weak attempt to make single-wield attractive. The name itself weighs quite a bit, though. Again, it's a class identity thing, which is something some of us have been desperate to see reflected through our job's mechanics beyond Refresh and Convert.

Quote:

And to those who think SE doesn't know what they're doing when it comes to RDM melee, I see your skepticism and raise you Composure...

That doesn't change enough and thus falls into the category of toys, or, at worst just something to make your spell cycling easier pre-AF3 (composure's recast allows it to be used, buff yourself, then cancel it and continue with your cycles).

I never looked to Fencer as a major thing on its own, just one of those little baby steps, where if cumulatively built upon with other things like fixed T2s, better/readily available (hybrid) gear, and so on, help the overall picture. Steering past CDC "requirements" to enter the conversation, the drastic drop we face when going from /NIN or even one of the EX WS subs to sub-WHM/BLM/SCH certainly doesn't help since the most common scenarios are likely to leave us as one of those three anyway. Try to break the mold and suddenly you can get the stink eye, friends or not.

That said, if upping our "proficiency" simply means skill rating in Sword, okay. It's another one of those baby steps. There's also the more general evaluation of WS that we could be keeping an eye on, but the most pragmatic approach would probably be to hope we wind up with at least the EX Elemental WS... not that RLB or Seraph mean a whole lot, Abyssea procs aside. I couldn't give two ***** about native staff skill, though some have gotten wet over the possibility of Cataclysm, even if it requires subbing WHM. Personally, I don't see AoE WS being all that commonly needed in future content.

My gripes about our Empyrean set, despite the benefit it certainly grants to both having more time on our hands as well as some MP savings over time, is that it is both a good number of levels too late in its arrival and is a purely gear dependent "fix" that hinges on any given person having the means to wrangle +2s in a timely fashion. The cape can at least be brewed from Yaanei if you're desperate enough. But really, I've said it before and I'll say it again, RDM melee shouldn't suddenly "begin" at endgame after acquiring all the various goodies, and even with said goodies, it's brushed off as a toy or hobby because nobody sane will want it near anything that really "matters" in the game. Prior to Composure, I'd been all about a tiered "Enhancing Mastery" trait that would've upped the duration of any buff we cast on anyone and left RDM an enticing sub for others who wish to buff (though certainly better served if said job carried its own buffs prior to the cap increases). One could argue we kinda sorta got for ourselves only, but more needed to happen than just clipping a body off the cycle ho-hum 2/3rds of the time.

As much as GG loves to be all up in my grill over how I must totally suck at the mage side of RDM and that my personal experience and observation of others commonly leaves the job as a WHM-wannabe is apparently bunk, I can't help but think back to my experience fighting Voidwrought (T4 ironclad Windy VWNM) the other night. For those who haven't fought it, it's a fun little mob capable of casting Dispelga and possessing fun little TP moves that inflict an AoE HP/MP down. Like other Ironclads, slow means jack since its normal attacks aren't really normal attacks. I'm sure we've all experienced this chasing down the RR atma. Anyway, I'm in the tank party, consisting of 2 PLDs, 2 WHMs, myself on RDM/SCH, and a floater DD. You can pretty much guess my duties here. Buff, buff, help erase, cure, buff, addle, maybe toss a spell to try and proc, buff, buff, cure, ********************************* repeat for good 20m or so where eventually it starts to hate reset, bust out weakness/stripga, and so on. All deliciously mind-numbing "fun" in the end where all I got out of the 2 fights we did were some AHable junk. And if you haven't guessed, I hate Voidwatch if only for the ****** loot system.

When you consider our +2 set, it pretty much solidifies we should be handling buffs we can cast over WHMs. We save them MP. They can focus more on cures. People get their buffs longer. I wouldn't call it "demi-god" status, but it's a sensible outlook. Fights like the above aren't really fun, though. Can also get types like Glavoid where, not only does it suck up your buffs AoE style, but between rebuffing people you've gotta Dispel. I have no delusions about how busy this job can get, but I don't think it's the good kind of busy. And our enfeebles mattering more is something I'll believe when it actually happens. God, I'd ******* love if we could get some kind of dummy buff that absorbs all the dispels and **** that's getting thrown around since we're apparently too good for AoEs even with Accession.

Well, a number of people do, apparently... because if it had been called anything other than Fencer, we wouldn't have people from the "fencer" job asking why they don't get the trait.

Nobody is saying that it would magically fix melee RDM's problems. All it would serve as is a little added incentive to not be whoring /NIN all the freaking time, which would be a long overdue and wholly welcomed sentiment.

Everyone is so bent out of shape about not getting Fencer that we're choosing to ignore this part? Has anyone considered that maybe Fencer as implemented is not something that fits RDM? Because when I look at RDM's melee capabilities, I certainly don't think to myself "Y'know, 5% more criticals and 20 TP Bonus would solve all my problems!" Who cares what the ability is called? The only thing that matters is what it does, and Fencer (while quite nice while /WAR single-wielding Almace with Enspell II...) is not going to fix anything that's wrong with RDM melee.

Thats because there is nothing glaringly wrong with RDM melee. The largest issue now is the gear options available, a lot of our best **** is still from the 75 cap, and a lot of the **** we could have used to replace we were left off of (again that being said the only reason 75 stuff is used is because without Walmart/Goliard/Dusk+1 we can't reach haste caps). The fundementals of RDM melee are pretty solid, whil we don't have the strng of enhancing melee JA's like actual DD jobs do, we also don't have a string of magic enhancing JA's either. We have a hybridy one that boosts our melee via time spent on mob, via reduced casting, and we have a bonus to enfeebling JA.

What it comes down to still is the community stigma that a meleeing RDM should also be expected to shoulder all the same tasks as if they were on the backline. While it is possible to do, it eats a very large portion of the RDM's offensive output to do so. A RDM in a purely offensive mindset (playing like a DD) is actually pretty good.

Once again (for what feels like the millionth time) RDM melee is not a RDM issue, it is a Community stigma issue. RDM is good at moving from one task to another, so good people see it as seamless. But RDM sucks when it is trying to perform multiple tasks at the same time.

My new recent position as /DRK is leaning towards the +Fencer crowd. RDM is expected to do a bunch of stuff and our sub is often changing from situation to situation, we really shouldn't be expected to rely on sub's for melee capability. Naitive Fencer would of made a difference for me on /DRK as I was stunning / WSing and enfeebling.

The only time i melee on my RDM is when i'm out soloing. I never ever break out a sword in a party, but even i think fencer would improve my solo melee career a little. I'm sure most rdm's would agree. Playing around on the test server rekindled my love for soloing, so i hope the adjustments they end up making are helpful at least.

I've never really understood the point of making things broadly immune.. just give them rapidly increasing resistance so that you only get a couple of casts in before it becomes immune, and make it so you need good gear to land it in the first place. Would easily prevent cheesing through things with Bind/Grav (which seems to be the entire point of immunity), while making battles much more tactically interesting to a well-geared RDM.

If a RNG can Shadowbind virtually any mob in the game, and use it intelligently to counter something like Hundred Fists, why shouldn't RDM be able to as well?

It seems they're going in the entirely opposite direction; leave immunities intact, make m.acc gear even more useless. Do not like.

Oh they could of.. oh... I dont know... RAISE THE **** RECAST OF THOSE SPELLS. That would have been the easiest fix and let rdms keep their place and usefulness.

All they had to do was to make sure that the enfeeble duration was shorter than the recast.... A simple fix..

Uh, did I miss something or don't both of them have the highest base recasts of any spell we have anyway... Bind's base recast is 40 seconds, Gravity is 60 seconds.

Edited, Sep 3rd 2011 7:06pm by Neisan

No they do however you are able to alternate the mob and keep it in lock down, and that brought about soloing and rdms bio'ing mobs to death taking forever killing something and then the villagers came out and wanted frankenrdm dead.

Then comes in Squarezing and slays the rdm and puts in immunity.

So back to what I was saying instead of immunity just put in a higer recast.

because they did at the time. now it takes more attention to detail. Can I kite this mob and nuke it without bind/grav, can I pin this mob, do I need to melee this mob.

Soloing has really diversified on RDM, long ago about all you could do was bind/grav/dot. Now you need to be able to kite/pin/melee/straight nuke (Culebre for example) so many factors to consider, the RDM soloist of today is leagues ahead of what we thought was good back when.

Early solos were neat but 2 hours tickling a mob to death was pathetic.

Just to add, I think the Bind/Grav nerf did more for RDM soloing then take from it, it forced us to look at other aspects of the job, some notable examples from this community being Rog and Xenith for their videos of some interesting styles and choices (Rog did/does? a lot with RDM/SCH, and Xenith was/is big with RDM/BLU.)

because they did at the time. now it takes more attention to detail. Can I kite this mob and nuke it without bind/grav, can I pin this mob, do I need to melee this mob.

Soloing has really diversified on RDM, long ago about all you could do was bind/grav/dot. Now you need to be able to kite/pin/melee/straight nuke (Culebre for example) so many factors to consider, the RDM soloist of today is leagues ahead of what we thought was good back when.

Early solos were neat but 2 hours tickling a mob to death was pathetic.

Just to add, I think the Bind/Grav nerf did more for RDM soloing then take from it, it forced us to look at other aspects of the job, some notable examples from this community being Rog and Xenith for their videos of some interesting styles and choices (Rog did/does? a lot with RDM/SCH, and Xenith was/is big with RDM/BLU.)

Edited, Sep 3rd 2011 7:02pm by rdmcandie

This, everything back in the day was bio III to death. And yeah Rdmcandie I would have to say it has forced the rdm out of the pigeon hole it was in and forced people to be a better players and learn more about what jobs can do.

To Aliekber they think that because the 98% of post VNM NMs you are referring to (those, and whichever others there may be,w/ immunities to certain enfeebles) represent only a small portion of all the NMs currently in the game. The fact that most are completely irrelevant (due to either thier lower levels or thier lack of worthwhile drops) is a moot point.

To Aliekber they think that because the 98% of post VNM NMs you are referring to (those, and whichever others there may be,w/ immunities to certain enfeebles) represent only a small portion of all the NMs currently in the game. The fact that most are completely irrelevant (due to either thier lower levels or thier lack of worthwhile drops) is a moot point.

Actually its a very valid point, and pretty much the emphasis of an entire argument. The fact that current relevant mobs were no longer able to be solo'd in the old fashion changed a lot. Many gave up soloing, other devised new ways. The fact that they chose that particular time to change the way mobs functioned (but not all mobs) in regards to certain spells was a statement from SE saying, no more soloing, or find a different way to do it, you are not going to so easily solo clear the next batches of content. That is far from a moot point....it is the whole point.